Mar 30, 2011

Fifth Season Of Mad Men In Peril

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Mad Men, one of my favorite TV shows, is getting screwed. Mad Men creator/executive producer, Matthew Weiner has been locked in an intense back and forth negotiation with production companies Lionsgate and AMC.

AMC's demands:

More product placement.

More obvious product placement.

Advertisers getting a creative say in how their products are presented.

Cutting upwards of six regular cast members over the course of the next three years.

Shave two minutes off of every episode for more commercials.

Garner more revenue to make up for the losses the show often generates the company.

Matthew Weiner's demands:

Shut up.

No one would know what AMC was if it weren't for Mad Men.

Our DVDs sell like hotcakes.

Let me make my show the way I want.

You can take whichever side you want, but I stand behind Matthew Weiner. Mad Men is critically acclaimed and put AMC on the map. They should be given free reign to do anything they want and AMC should be more than supportive. The only facts I've left out that you need to know is that AMC is slowly but surely gaining more shows that people are in love with, like Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead. But for every upcoming experiment AMC is looking to, I'm sure they're keeping the failed Rubicon in the back of their minds.

Unfortunately for Mad Men fans, no matter what happens, the earliest we'll see the return of the show's fifth season will be March 2012. AMC stalled the negotiations so long that they bumped Weiner out of his opportunity to produce another season in time for a normal return date this year. What's that tell you about the station?